Chapter 275: [275] "THINK AHEAD"

Hugo had done his homework. He had studied every second of footage Henri had provided, had sat through extra video sessions on his own, had understood Neji the same way Neji had clearly already understood SC Valois.

Tonight that particular midfield contest would be settled between two players who had both spent the same number of hours preparing to face off.

The referee appeared at the far end of the tunnel, raising one hand.

The Phocéen line began to move.

The noise from the stadium came through the tunnel entrance like a wall of pressure, twenty-nine thousand voices activating at the sight of their players emerging. The floodlights at the top of the tunnel entrance were sharp, the green of the pitch visible beyond it.

SC Valois moved with the line.

Luc walked forward, his boots clicking off the tunnel floor before the sound was swallowed by the escalating roar from the stands.

At the tunnel mouth, the noise became total. It hit him in the chest before he had taken his first step onto the grass.

The night air was cold. The pitch was standard, the grass cut sharp and low in the way Phocéen always prepared it for their home fixtures. The floodlights were at full intensity, bleaching every shadow out of the turf and making the blue of Phocéen’s home kit blaze against the green.

Luc walked forward.

The lines of players fanned out across the turf for the pre-match formalities, the handshakes, the coin toss, the lineup photograph that the cameras would use across every broadcast for the next four years if this match became what it had the potential to become.

He walked in line. He moved past the Phocéen staff, past the fourth official, past the board marking the technical areas.

Then Fresko was in front of him.

The formal handshake. The exchange that protocol demanded and that Luc went through, he applied a certain lack of enthusiasm to every pre-match ritual that ate into the time before the whistle.

Fresko gripped his hand.

He looked at Luc and said nothing, he needed no introduction and was extending no pleasantries. His eyes held the same quality as the rest of him. Already somewhere else in his thinking, somewhere goal related.

Luc met the grip, held it for the correct amount of time, and released it.

He looked at Fresko like a defensive line he was about to dissect because his job was not to admire but to deconstruct. Fresko was good. Fresko was thirty goals good, and that was not an accident, only an idiot would walk into this match without crediting the man standing across from him with what his record said he was worth.

But Luc was thirty-TWO goals.

Six meters away, Hugo had stepped forward for the handshake with Neji.

The Phocéen midfielder took Hugo’s hand with the same calm he applied to everything. He glanced down at the teenager, the slight height difference between them unremarkable.

Neji said something.

Luc didn’t hear it.

Hugo’s response was brief. One sentence, possibly two, delivered with flat composure. Hugo had decided some time ago that composure was not a trait you earned at a certain age but a decision you made at any age if you were serious about what you were doing.

The two midfielders released the handshake.

They looked at each other for one additional second.

Then both turned and walked toward their respective positions as the players spread out across the pitch, the noise of the stadium rolling in continuous waves above the turf.

Luc took his position in the forward line.

The referee was at the center circle.

The floodlights made everything fucking cinematic.

Luc looked down the pitch at Phocéen’s half.

At the defensive line. At the high press shape their manager had spent weeks drilling into them. At the gaps that already existed in their setup, the spaces that their system created by design and left open by consequence, the angles that Luc had spent days memorizing until he could close his eyes in his quiet house and walk through them without the lights on.

The referee raised his hand.

The crowd reached its full voice.

Luc was already thinking three passes ahead of everyone else on this pitch.

Piii

The shrill of the referee’s whistle came in louder than the wall of noise coming down from the thousands of supporters inside the Phocéen stadium.

Luc stood over the ball in the center circle. He pushed it an inch as he tapped it backward with the sole of his boot, and initiated the match.

Hugo received the tap and didn’t hold the ball in order not to invite unnecessary pressure. He played a firm, grounded pass backward to Klaus. Hugo Blanc then initiated a jog forward, crossing the halfway line to occupy space.

Klaus to Hugo.

Hugo trapped the ball beneath his right cleat. He surveyed the pitch.

The board was set, and the nature of the match was going to be unforgiving. Both SC Valois and Stade Phocéen had deployed identical 4-3-3 formations. When two teams utilizing the same shape met on the grass, the spaces that usually existed in the transitions vanished. Every player possessed a designated marker. The midfield was going to be a congested grid of man-to-man marking assignments.

Phocéen did not sit back in a low block. They were the home side, chasing the team just above them on the table, and their manager had instructed them to hunt.

Fresko led their press. The Phocéen striker surged across, angling his run to cut off the passing opportunity between Hugo and Klaus Becker. Fresko wanted to force the ball backward, trap Valois deep in their own defensive third, and squeeze the pitch until an error occurred.

Hugo recognized it, and he did not oblige.

The teenager opened his hips, feinted a pass back to Amadou Fall, and instead zipped a ball across the turf to Cillian Doyle.

Cillian received the pass on the half-turn. A Phocéen central midfielder charged at him, cleats tearing up the grass, intent on delivering a clean tackle in the opening ten seconds to set a competitive tone.